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Indian expats wear their tricolour on the sleeves
Indian expats wear their tricolour on the sleeves Olivia Olarte-Ulherr & Nivriti Butalia / 16 August 2013 Hundreds of Indian expatriates sang their national anthem as their envoys and leaders hoisted their national flag signalling the beginning of the 67th Independence Day celebrations at the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, Consulate in Dubai and also at community associations across the country on Thursday morning. Girls hold their national flag as part of the Independence Day celebrations held at the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi and, below, the Consulate in Dubai on Thursday. — KT photos by Shoaib Anwer and Mukesh Kamal There was a good turnout at the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, where the flag was hoisted by Indian Ambassador M. K. Lokesh. Students from the Abu Dhabi Indian School sang the national anthem and a short cultural show by the students followed. At 7.50am at the Indian Consulate in Dubai, Consul-General Sanjay Verma, wearing a black bandhgala, unfurled the national flag. The ceremony had at least 500 members present from the Indian community, the majority wearing colours of the national flag and dressed in traditional attire. The tricolor was also hoisted by Indian communities in Sharjah, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Umm Al Quwain and Kalba. In Dubai, Verma commenting on the diversity and pluralism of Indian culture, said there must be (in the auditorium) speakers of at least 40-50 Indian languages. Edwin, who has lived with his family for 20 years in Abu Dhabi, said he was very proud of his country and what it had achieved. The Independence Day celebrations for him meant that “we ran and established the country on our own reaching these heights”. “It’s a great joy for me that India enjoys a good stature in the world market today and is known for its economic boom, education, science and technology.” Verma in his speech requested the audience to not lose heart at the state of the economy and the crisis in governance and other issues that plague India. He read out excerpts of the president’s address on the eve of Independence Day. And he also spoke of India’s healthy bilateral relations with the UAE. He congratulated the Indian community for their contribution to the two nations, India and the UAE, and spoke about India’s diversity and inclusive national model. He stressed that India was stronger than ever before in its history and prepared to deal with any challenge that came its way. In his speech read out during the ceremonies, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee said, “For a developing country of more than 1.2 billion people, the debate between growth and redistribution is vital … The last decade has seen India emerge as one of the fastest growing nations in the world. During this period, our economy grew annually at an average rate of 7.9 per cent. “We are today self-sufficient in food grain production. We are the largest exporter of rice and second largest exporter of wheat in the world. The record production of 18.45 million tonnes of pulses this year augurs well for our march towards self-sufficiency in pulses… This momentum has to be sustained. In a globalised world, with increasing economic complexities, we have to learn to cope better with adversities, both external and domestic.” On security, he said, “Our commitment to peace is unfailing but even our patience has limits. All steps necessary to ensure internal security and protect the territorial integrity of the nation will be taken.” Noting today’s “widespread cynicism and disillusionment” with the governance and institutions, and the challenges of corruption, Mukherjee urged his compatriots to “elect a stable government which will ensure security and economic development” in the coming elections. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose speech was also read out, said despite the country’s progressive journey in the past ten years, “much remains to be done. The process of change that we have initiated will be continued in the coming time”. He cited the enhanced economic prosperity in rural areas, the double numbers of young men and women going to college and the strengthening of the law dealing with offences against women. “If in the future we can achieve the same kind of progress as in the last decade, the day is not far off when India will be rid of poverty, hunger, disease and ignorance. Our India will be prosperous and all its citizens will be equal partners in this prosperity, irrespective of their religion, caste, region or language,” he pointed out. At the Dubai Consulate, patriotic songs were sung by four different singers. While Chhavie Sahay rendered her take on ‘Saare jahan se achha’, the highlight of the morning was Assamese singer Deepa Bordoloi, along with Utpal Baruah on the guitar. A four page print-out of the president’s speech in Hindi was distributed to the attendees at the Consulate that ended with Jai Hind.— news@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
KT lucky draw winner drives away in Mazda 3
KT lucky draw winner drives away in Mazda 3 Staff Reporter / 16 August 2013 Khaleej Times (KT) launched a special scheme for 35 days with a special annual subscription rate of Dh350 as part of KT’s celebrations of 35 years with subscribers being given redeemable vouchers worth Dh550 and a chance to win a Mazda 3. THE LUCKY SUBSCRIBER….Venkatraman Prakash, winner of the Khaleej Times lucky draw and wife Rama, receive the keys to a Mazda 3 from Constance Moraes, Circulation Manager, Khaleej Times, along with Axel Dreyer, General Manager, Galadari Automobiles Co. Ltd.— KT photo by Juidin Bernarrd As per KT ’s Circulation Manager, Constance Moraes, the scheme got a tremendous response with new subscribers coming into KT ’s fold. KT’ s lucky draw winner, and now proud owner of a new car, Venkatraman Prakash, a Logistics Manager at Al Tajir Glass, accompanied by his wife, Rama, drove an electric blue Mazda 3 away from the Mazda showroom on Shaikh Zayed Road on Tuesday afternoon. Rama’s favourite part of the newspaper is City Times . She is the first person to wake up in the household and brew her morning coffee, so the paper is first hers. Rama enjoys reading the Wknd magazine which she saves every week to post to her daughter, a model married and settled in Muscat, but who visits them every few months. The Prakash couple was pleased with the colour of the car although Venkatraman said he wouldn’t have minded a red. Their other car is a grey-coloured Dodge. Venkatraman will drive the Mazda 3 to his office in Jebel Ali, but only every alternate day as he is part of a car pool. Tuesday being not his day to drive to work, Venkatraman got dropped to the new Mazda showroom so he could drive the new car back to their home in Al Qusais. The couple was greeted and handed over the keys of their new car by Moraes and Axel Dreyer, General Manager of Galadari Automobiles Co. Ltd. The pair shook hands with the new owner and his wife, and wished them the best of luck. Rama promised a treat — “Definitely!” — to the delivery boy who gets her copy of KT to her doorstep. — news@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
Death toll from Egypt violence rises to 638
Death toll from Egypt violence rises to 638 (Agencies) / 16 August 2013 The Egyptian Health Ministry has raised the death toll from the day’s violence that followed a crackdown on two camps housing supporters of the ousted president to 638. Ministry spokesman Mohammed Fathallah told The Associated Press on Thursday that the number of injured in the previous day’s violence also has risen to 3,994. Fathallah said 288 of the dead were killed in the larger of the two camps, in Cairo’s eastern Nasr City district. Near the site of one of the smashed encampments of ousted President Mohammed Mursi’s supporters in the eastern Nasr City suburb, an Associated Press reporter on Thursday saw dozens of blood soaked bodies stored inside a mosque. The bodies were wrapped in sheets and still unclaimed by families. Relatives at the scene were uncovering the faces in an attempt to identify their loved ones. Many complained that authorities were preventing them from obtaining permits to bury them. Wednesday’s violence started with riot police raiding and clearing out the two camps, sparking clashes there and elsewhere in the Egyptian capital and other cities. Cairo, a city of some 18 million people, was uncharacteristically quiet on Thursday, with only a fraction of its usually hectic traffic and many stores and government offices shuttered. Many people hunkered down at home for fear of more violence. Banks and the stock market were closed. The latest events in Egypt drew widespread condemnation from the Muslim world and the West, including the United States, Egypt’s main foreign backer for over 30 years. Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed El Baradei resigned later Wednesday as Egypt’s interim vice-president in protest — a blow to the new leadership’s credibility with the pro-reform movement. Interim Prime Minister Hazem El Beblawi said in a televised address to the nation that it was a “difficult day” and that he regretted the bloodshed but offered no apologies for moving against Mursi’s supporters, saying they were given ample warnings to leave and he had tried foreign mediation efforts. The leaders of Muslim Brotherhood called it a “massacre.” Several prominent Brotherhood figures were detained as police swept through the two sit-in sites, scores of other Islamists were taken into custody, and the future of the once-banned movement was uncertain. Backed by helicopters, police fired teargas and used armored bulldozers to plow into the barricades at the two protest camps on opposite ends of Cairo. Mursi’s supporters had been camped out since before he was ousted by a July 3 coup that followed days of mass protests by millions of Egyptians demanding that he step down. The smaller camp — near Cairo University in Giza — was cleared of protesters relatively quickly, but it took about 12 hours for police to take control of the main sit-in site near the Rabaah Al Adawiya Mosque in Nasr City that has served as the epicenter of the pro-Mursi campaign and had drawn chanting throngs of men, women and children only days earlier. After the police moved on the camps, street battles broke out in Cairo and other cities across Egypt. Government buildings and police stations were attacked, roads were blocked, and Christian churches were torched, Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said. At one point, protesters trapped a police Humvee on an overpass near the Nasr City camp and pushed it off, according to images posted on social networking sites that showed an injured policeman on the ground below, near a pool of blood and the overturned vehicle. Three journalists were among the dead: Mick Deane, 61, a cameraman for British broadcaster Sky News; Habiba Ahmed Abd Elaziz, 26, a reporter for UAE-based newspaper; and Ahmed Abdel Gawad, who wrote for Egypt’s state-run newspaper Al Akhbar . Deane and Elaziz were shot to death, their employers said, while the Egyptian Press Syndicate, a journalists’ union, said it had no information on how Gawad was killed. The turmoil was the latest chapter in a bitter standoff between Mursi’s supporters and the interim leadership that took over the Arab world’s most populous country. A security official said 200 protesters were arrested at both camps. Several men could be seen walking with their hands up as they were led away by black-clad police. The Brotherhood has spent most of the 85 years since its creation as an outlawed group or enduring crackdowns by successive governments. The latest developments could provide authorities with the grounds to once again declare it an illegal group and consign it to the political wilderness. In his televised address, El Beblawi said the government could not indefinitely tolerate a challenge to authority that the 6-week-old protests represented. “We want to see a civilian state in Egypt, not a military state and not a religious state,” he said. But the resignation of El Baradei, the former head of the UN nuclear agency and a figure widely respected by Western governments, was the first crack to emerge in the government as a result of the violence. El Baradei had made it clear in recent weeks that he was against the use of force to end the protests. At least 250 people have died in previous clashes since the coup that ousted Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president. On Wednesday, his letter of resignation to interim President Adly Mansour carried an ominous message to a nation already torn by more than two years of turmoil. “It has become difficult for me to continue to take responsibility for decisions I disapprove of, and I fear their consequences,” he said in the letter that was emailed to The Associated Press. “I cannot take responsibility before God, my conscience and country for a single drop of blood, especially because I know it was possible to spare it. The National Salvation front, the main opposition grouping that he headed during Mursi’s year in office, said it regretted his departure and complained that it was not consulted beforehand. Tamarod, the youth group behind the mass anti-Mursi protests that preceded the coup, said El Baradei was dodging his responsibility at a time when his services were needed. Sheik Ahmed Al Tayyeb, the powerful head of Al Azhar mosque, also sought to distance himself from the violence. He said in a statement he had no prior knowledge of the action. Turkey calls for UN meet Mursi supporters call new march Two policemen killed Continue reading
